Plutarch Quotes
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Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous.
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Moral habits, induced by public practices, are far quicker in making their way into men's private lives, than the failings and faults of individuals are in infecting the city at large.
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Once when Phocion had delivered an opinion which pleased the people,… he turned to his friend and said, 'Have I not unawares spoken some mischievous thing or other?'
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Have in readiness this saying of Solon, 'But we will not give up our virtue in exchange for their wealth.'
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Extraordinary rains pretty generally fall after great battles.
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Character is long-standing habit.
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It is a difficult thing for a man to resist the natural necessity of mortal passions.
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As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the effect that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild beasts, and unapproachable bogs.
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Being summoned by the Athenians out of Sicily to plead for his life, Alcibiades absconded, saying that that criminal was a fool who studied a defence when he might fly for it.
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That proverbial saying, 'Ill news goes quick and far.'
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What is bigger than an elephant? But this also is become man's plaything, and a spectacle at public solemnities; and it learns to skip, dance, and kneel.
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An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.
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Diogenes the Cynic, when a little before his death he fell into a slumber, and his physician rousing him out of it asked him whether anything ailed him, wisely answered, 'Nothing, sir; only one brother anticipates another,-Sleep before Death.'
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Someone praising a man for his foolhardy bravery, Cato, the elder, said, ''There is a wide difference between true courage and a mere contempt of life.
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Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.
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As those that pull down private houses adjoining to the temples of the gods, prop up such parts as are contiguous to them; so, in undermining bashfulness, due regard is to be had to adjacent modesty, good-nature and humanity.
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Our nature holds so much envy and malice that our pleasure in our own advantages is not so great as our distress at others'.
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Philosophy is an act of living.
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It is not histories I am writing, but lives; and in the most glorious deeds there is not always an indication of virtue or vice, indeed a small thing like a phrase or a jest often makes a greater revelation of a character than battles where thousands die.
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By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. "What greater pleasure could'st thou gain than this?" What more valuable for the elevation of our own character?
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To conduct great matters and never commit a fault is above the force of human nature.
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When the strong box contains no more both friends and flatterers shun the door.
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He (Cato) used to say that in all his life he never repented but of three things. The first was that he had trusted a woman with a secret; the second that he had gone by sea when he might have gone by land; and the third, that had passed one day without having a will by him.
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The process may seem strange and yet it is very true. I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience I had of things.